EMW Tea Co.

This post has been a long time coming. I was a little relieved a few weeks ago when I was able to post about EMW Tea Co.’s shaved ice. For one, it allowed me to talk a little bit about the teashop because I had been racking my brain and my imaginative juices trying to come up with a good post on the place. Second, I had pictures of actual food to post because–if you’re like me–you would rather look at pictures than read about food. You see, most of EMW Tea Co.’s products come in sealed cups, so there’s not much to see besides the outside of the cup, which by the way is quite exquisite. But after spending some time trying to come up with good pictures, I finally have some pretty awesome pictures, especially if you like tea. I like tea.

And by the way, I guess I should probably put a disclaimer on this post because my family also owns this teashop in addition to East Meets West China Bistro. This doesn’t really help much with my trying to be anonymous, but what the hell, I’m trying to be honest and retain some credibility as a blogger. (I could delve into the subject of plants going on to websites just to puff up a specific restaurants reputation, which I assume has happened on Foodbuzz.com (two users signed up and only rated Fleming’s 5/5 *cough* shady *cough*))

Anyways, let me briefly tell you about the place. Going into the intricacies of how each tea tastes differently than other teas would take pages, which I’m too lazy to write. The shop sells tea, boba tea, coffee, shaved ice, etc. It’s basically the same concept as the tea shops you would see in LA and SF and NY, except the method or preparation and quality of ingredients are different. Completely different. Which makes it seem not too similar to places like Ten Ren and Tapioca Express at all.

The most important and distinguishing factor of the tea shop is that instead of brewing tea in giant vats and letting the tea sit until it’s ladled out after someone orders a cup, each cup is brewed individually. How is that possible considering that it takes minutes for tea to seep into hot water? Well, EMW uses a patented, $9000 espresso machine that’s specially formulated to brew tea using the same concept as espresso. It’s slightly different than making espresso because the machine soaks the tea grinds in hot water first before expelling tea. But what you get is a drink that has intense tea flavor and antioxidants. It’s also the only drink of its kind in the United States because this is the only espresso machine that can make tea in the U.S.

Other fun facts about the place: lots of tea varieties, ranging from multiple types of Oolong tea to Earl Grey to Darjeeling black tea and many others in between; all teas are imported and organic, grown without pesticides. They also make some mean Thai tea and strawberry slushes. Other specialty drinks include Alishan tea, which is probably the best type of Oolong in the world, and the EMW Tango, which is milk tea and espresso combined. If you’ve heard of LAMILL Coffee, they also serve it under the name of Yin-Yang Coffee, except it’s probably twice as expensive there.

I’m going to refrain from commenting on the flavors because I don’t want to seem biased. The drinks are good. I just hope that all you readers in Fresno find out about the place and visit and try a drink that can’t be found in LA, SF, or NY. I don’t get paid to write about the teashop. In fact, I had to work at the teashop without pay this past summer. But I guess I don’t want Fresno to pass up a good thing.

My Life In One Blog

I'm going to start incorporating life events and fooding into this blog since I don't do much of either anymore. The hospital takes up most of my life now. This blog will possibly be slightly more interesting. Maybe.